Ex-Footballer Ched Evans' Rape Conviction Referred to Court of Appeal

05/10/2015

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26-year old ex-footballer Ched Evans was convicted of raping a 19-year old woman in a Premier Inn in Rhyl, Wales in April of 2012. His footballer friend Clayton McDonald was said to have had intercourse with the victim first, then followed by Evans raping her and two people filming it through a window.

Evans denied this claim and said that the sex was consensual. The prosecution said that the woman was too inebriated to be able to consent to it. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison but was released in October of 2014 serving only half of his sentence.

The ex-Sheffield United striker appealed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission who investigate miscarriages of justice in July of 2014. Today, after 10 months of investigation, they are said to have ‘new information which was not raised at the trial’ and could support his defence and lead to the conviction being overturned.

The chair of the CCRC, Richard Foster, said: “The decision of the commission is not a judgment on guilt or innocence in relation to Ched Evans, nor is it a judgment about the honesty or integrity of the victim or any other person involved in the case.

“Our role is to consider applications to see if, in our judgment, there is any basis on which to ask the court to hear a fresh appeal – that is our statutory responsibility. In this case we have identified new material which was not considered by the jury at trial and which in our view might have assisted the defence. In those circumstances, it is right and proper for the matter to be before the court so that they can decide whether or not the new information should affect the verdict in this case.”

The unnamed victim was said to have had to change her name and move houses 5 times due to Twitter trolls identifying her. She is being informed about the developments of the Ched Evans case.